It has taken me a long time to decide on the location for this Virtual Cache. These are rare caches so I wanted it to be a special place for people to come and visit but also have some meaning to me any my life. The Golden Hind was the perfect fit! I love being on or near to water, I also live ten minutes from water and thus a cache about a world famous boat seemed like a perfect fit. I also work for the railway and one of the famous named trains that I personally work is called the Golden Hind, so also fits well with the Railway Connection.
The Golden Hind was launched in 1557 and was sponsored by Queen Elizabeth I. The ship was initially called the Pelican before it was renamed as the Golden Hind in 1558 by Captain Sir Francis Drake. In 1577, Queen Elizabeth partly sponsored Sir Francis Drake as the leader of an expedition intended to pass around South America through the Strait of Magellan and to explore the coast that lay beyond.
The queen's support was advantageous; Drake had official approval to benefit himself and the queen as well as to cause the maximum damage to the Spaniards. Drake commissioned his flagship in Plymouth. The keel was registered in 1575. The majority of the work was done in 1576, and it was completed early the next year.
After Drake's circumnavigation, Golden Hind was maintained for public exhibition at the dockyard at Deptford, London. The ship remained there from 1580 to approximately 1650, 45 years after Queen Elizabeth had died, before the ship eventually rotted away and was broken up.
To Claim this cache you will need to do the following tasks. .
1) Please take a photo of yourself, GPS or Smartphone with the Golden Hind (You do not need to include your face if you don't want to) and attach it to your found log. .
Please e-mail me through my profile or use the messaging centre to answer these questions, which can be found at the site of the Golden Hind. .
1) In what date in December did The Golden Hind Slip its Moorings in Plymouth?.
2) On the manhole cover between two benches very close to the Golden Hind, can you please tell me the name written on the manhole cover?
You don't need to wait for my response in order to log the cache as found. To keep this cache and Virtual caches special, any caches that don't fulfill the logging criteria will be deleted. Hope you enjoy this location as much as I do. Happy Caching!
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog